Anand Piramal invests undisclosed sum in Snapdeal

Anand Piramal has invested in Snapdeal in his personal capacity. Photo: Mexy Xavier

 Anand Piramal, executive director of the pharma and realty conglomerate Piramal Group, has invested an undisclosed amount in Snapdeal in his personal capacity, the Delhi-based ecommerce company said in a press release on July 23.

“Snapdeal’s sharp execution in bringing great selection to the mass-market segment in tier 2-3 cities has been quite successful, leveraging the growing Internet penetration in these geographies,” Piramal said in the press release. “Since 2017, Snapdeal’s revenues have grown rapidly with profitable unit economics. With hundreds of millions of first time ecommerce buyers yet to transact, Snapdeal is well poised to grow in the future.”

Founded in 2010 by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, Snapdeal lost out to larger rivals Flipkart and Amazon’s Indian unit in the race to dominate the country’s nascent ecommerce market. Snapdeal was widely written off after talks to merge with Flipkart failed in 2017. Snapdeal, on the brink, sold parts of itself, including a logistics unit and a payments business, to find the money to effect a turnaround it called Snapdeal 2.0.

“Anand's investment comes as a significant endorsement for Snapdeal and the transformation the company has undergone over the last couple of years,” Kunal Bahl, Snapdeal CEO, said in the press release.

Snapdeal’s recently announced audited financial results for the fiscal year ended March 31 shows improvements in sales and reduction in losses. Revenue rose 73 percent to Rs 925.3 crore over the previous fiscal year, and losses fell 71 percent to Rs 186 crore. In the same period, traffic on Snapdeal’s marketplace increased 2.3 times to 70 million unique monthly users and the number of transacting users grew 2.2 times in the last 12 months.

In the past two years, Snapdeal has sharpened its focus on the needs of the value-conscious buyers in India. More than 80 percent of its users come from the small towns and cities of India. This market of nearly 400 million potential buyers is the fastest growing segment in Indian ecommerce, Snapdeal said in its release. 

Snapdeal has added more than 60,000 new seller partners in two years, who have amassed over 50 million new listings. Snapdeal now has more than 500,000 registered sellers who have more than 200 million listings on the marketplace, according to the press release.